Emerging Technologies with Chris Smith of Inman Next and Tech Savvy Agent

It’s an all too-familiar tale. The minute you think you’ve got a hold of the latest, greatest, ground-breaking technology another one comes out! Or the minute you have your Business Page just right, Zuckerberg decides it’s time for a change. Keeping up with the Facebook’s, Twitter’s and Google’s of the world in an effort to reach more clients online often becomes all-encompassing and sometimes overwhelming. Where are my current and prospective clients?  how much time should I spend getting to know the new technologies, and what will my return on investment (ROI) be?

Thankfully Chris Smith, chief evangelist for Inman News, co-creator of Inman NEXT and author of the popular blog Tech Savvy Agent, took the stage at Mega Technology Camp to present his vision for the future of technology and its impact on the day-to-day business of real estate professionals. Here he is giving his two-cents (worth so much more!) on what’s to come and how smart agents can tap in and effectively leverage technology in their business.

KW’s Vice President of Publishing, Jay Papasan, hit the stage to talk about social media, KLOUT and the numbers of Facebook, then led a panel about social media with KW’s Executive Director of Technology, Cary Sylvester, and KW associates Seychelle Van Poole Engelhard, Liz Landry and Matt Fettick. Here are our top takeaways from the panel:

-Facebook posts get 52% of its clicks within the first 62 minutes.

-83% of businesses use Facebook.

-If you create a page, engage your audience!

-Photos get the most interaction on Facebook.

-Although the majority of us post links, people are the least likely to interact on those posts.

-When vlogging, don’t record more than 90 seconds, power pack the first 20-30 secs and add a call to action at the end.

-Facebook is not a listing feed! If you are going to post your listing…it better be interesting…like this one.

-Don’t be all business all the time. Use the 6:1 ratio…with 6 personal posts to 1 business.

-Ask for what you want…if you want more comments and likes…just ask!

-Go where your audience is-and keep in mind it might not be the latest social media tool.

For more, follow Mega Camp on Twitter by searching #KWMC.

Already a big fan of location-based applications like Foursquare and Gowalla, I was pretty excited to try out Facebook Places.

In short, Facebook Places lets you and your friends check into a location. Once checked in, you can see who else out of your friends is at that location or one nearby. Cool right? But, as with any Facebook update, the addition of Places brings a whole new slew of privacy updates to your Profile that you must know about. So, here are a few things to make note of to ensure that you are comfortable with your settings and what you are sharing on Facebook.

1. Opt out of friends checking YOU in. With Facebook Places, the setting is automatically defaulted to “Enabled,” allowing friends to check you in on your behalf. As I wrote this post I was able to check-in at Starbucks on my iPhone from my desk at work (across the freeway from Starbucks) and tag a friend as being there with me. At first, both of us showed up on my Facebook Profile page as being checked in. Then Facebook Places sent an email letting my friend know I was trying to check her in. Once she approved it, a post showed up on her Facebook Profile page. Continue reading ‘Facebook Places: Another Adventure in Privacy’

KW’s Ben Kinney (@benkinney on Twitter), co-author of soci@l,  hosted a panel today featuring top social media experts.  Check out the video which includes ActiveRain’s Bob Stewart (@activebob on Twitter):